How to Publish a Pop Culture e-Zine

No doubt e-Zines are multiplying at an exponential rate; however, pop culture and its powerful elixir has been around since the early 20th century. Take a look around on the Internet and you'll find that there are many e-Zines that focus directly on pop culture itself. Further investigation will show, with a discerning pop culture eye, that many e-Zines highlight certain aspects of pop culture itself. For example, genre-based music sites or celebrity sites. Make your mark on the publishing world by feeding a need of an enormous audience. Pop Culture is by definition anything pertaining to the spread of particular behaviors and the beliefs that encompass them, the current common trends in the arts, thought and end results of work by a body of the population.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Internet connection
• Phone
• Recording device for interviews

1. Aquaint yourself with the enormously well-received aspects and characteristics of pop culture in this day and age. People love their entertainment. Whether it is film, music or Hollywood-fueled attraction, one must seek out what drives them to be as effective as possible. In other words, search yourself for your own self-satisfying niche. The ultimate success of your e-Zine will come with passion.
2. Choose your topic or segment of pop culture to bring to the Internet stage and research as much as possible to become a force to be reckoned with in terms of background and knowledge. This is especially important when writing your stories, interviewing your subjects and when making your contacts (you don't want to sound like an amateur even if you are).
3. Design a thoughtful name for your e-Zine. Try to center the name of your zine around your genre, niche and philosophy behind why and what you are trying to accomplish.
4. Secure you web presence and web site. Luckily, for those who aren't HTML savvy there is the trend in New Media that is based around Content Management System web design(CMS). If you can type, drag and drop, and have a discerning eye for how your site should be laid out, then CMS is for you (plus, it is a huge time saver). Register your domain name and pick a template from a hosting company such as Rock n Roll Design.
5. Write your content. Some content can be based on your current or researched knowledge, but the masses want to read stories straight from the players in pop culture. Seek out web sites of those who you are interested in and check for public relations or management contact information to reach your means to an end–-landing that coveted interview.
6. Write well. You can take courses (on-campus or online courses are available all over the place). Your style of writing should be unique but consistent with others in the field in order to have a tried and true pop culture voice.
7. Promote your zine. You can farm your own public relations out to inexpensive but effective PR houses like Explosive PR. Marketing materials (such as postcards and posters) can be printed inexpensively by companies like Vista Print.

Tips & Warnings

• Promotion is tricky, but can be the savior to your psyche when few people visit your e-Zine and you fall into a downward spiral of despair. Most people who you interview will either read your work themselves or have a public relations honcho read it for them. The determination to post your story on their site and hopefully give you a reciprocal link is up to the powers that be, but a well-written story will increase those chances.